Thanksgiving

For those of you who don't know, Thanksgiving is a Harvest Festival celebrated in the USA on the fourth Thursday of November. The story goes that the Pilgrims started the Thanksgiving tradition when they held their Harvest festival and invited the Indians to share their feast and the Indians brought a Turkey to share. Today it is fondly known as 'Turkey Day' and it heralds the start of the Holiday season The famous 'Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade' with its marching bands and huge helium balloons brings Santa Claus to the New York store. The parade was the centre piece of my favourite Christmas film 'Miracle on 34th Street', the 1947 version although the 1994 version is good as well.

I know Thanksgiving is not celebrated in England but I spent 6 years of my married life in the States and I still have some relatives there so I have a couple of Thanksgiving cards to make each year.







The backing paper is printed from an Artylicious CD 'Essence of Nature’, which I printed out onto a pearlescent paper. This was my first venture into using CD's for backing papers and I was really pleased with the result so I will be looking into using the media more. The image is a stamp from Whiff of Joy which I coloured with Promarkers. The flowers are from Orchard Crafts and the ribbons are from my stash. The greeting I stamped using an Inkadinkado stamp and a powder from WOW! who are bringing out some nice colours. I like to make a co-ordinating box for my cards rather than an envelope or boxelope so that the flowers do not get crushed, but as this has to make it to the USA I will be wrapping it in bubble wrap as well.

The New Man in My Life

I have just realised how long it has been since I posted anything on here, I blame the new man in my life for taking up too much of my time!

Please say hello to the newest addition to our household, Brodie.

Brodie is a 10 year old Liver and White Springer Spaniel that we have adopted from the 'Dogs Trust'. He came to them as a stray found somewhere in Ireland so we do not have any history on him before he was taken into the care of the Trust. When he was examined by one of the Trust's vets it was found that Brodie had a damaged kidney and appalling teeth problems. It was decided that the best course of action was to remove the damaged kidney and while he was under anaesthetic to do what they could in the way of dental treatment.

You may remember that our previous dog, Brian, had also come to us from the Dog's Trust so that made the process of adopting Brodie much easier as we did not have to wait for a home check or Vet check. I went for another older dog because I cannot walk very far or very fast so I needed a dog who did not need more exercise than I could give him and one that would not be running around my feet and tripping me up.

When we brought Brodie home he had only had his big operation 3 weeks previously and he needed to put some weight on but apart from that he is a lovely dog. He is very well behaved and has been trained well. We think he may have been trained as a gun dog as he loves to retrieve a thrown toy but we have yet to find the command to make him give up the toy once he brings it back to you!

Our cat Oscar is still not too sure of Brodie, I am sure it will be alright but it is just taking a bit of time for them both to get used to each other. Oscar is still a bit frightened of the dog whilst Brodie can get a bit jealous of the cat.

So that’s my excuse and now I will get back to crafting.